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June Mickle: One Woman’s Life in the Foothills and Mountains of Western Canada
June Mickle: One Woman’s Life in the Foothills and Mountains of Western Canada
June Mickle: One Woman’s Life in the Foothills and Mountains of Western Canada
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June Mickle: One Woman’s Life in the Foothills and Mountains of Western Canada

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June’s strength of character was forged by living in the wilderness west of Turner Valley as a young girl with her mother and her stepfather, Tip Johnson, a renowned cowboy and horse trainer. She learned early to live in harmony with her environment and became a strongly determined woman capable of meeting the challenges of being an artist, horseback guide, businesswoman, wife and mother. As the only child of a single mother, June saw early years that were marked by loneliness but also by close family ties that defined how she would chart her adult life. As well, it led to a love of horses that played an essential part of her life right up until her death at the age of 91.

Her life with Bert Mickle, the son of a long-established ranching family, was unconventional. It is a love story of two people coping with family struggles and a precarious existence that had tremendous rewards and hardships. June’s strength of character held her family together despite unforeseen tragedies.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 10, 2015
ISBN9781771601498
June Mickle: One Woman’s Life in the Foothills and Mountains of Western Canada
Author

Kathy Calvert

Kathy Calvert grew up in the Canadian Rockies. In 1974 she became one of the first female national park wardens in Canada; in 1977 she was a member of the first all-women expedition to Mount Logan and in 1989 was on the first all-women ski traverse of the Columbia Mountains from the Bugaboos to Rogers Pass. She is the author of four books: Don Forest: Quest for the Summits, Guardians of the Peaks: Mountain Rescue in the Canadian Rockies and Columbia Mountains, June Mickle: One Woman’s Life in the Foothills and Mountains of Western Canada, and Ya Ha Tinda: A Home Place - Celebrating 100 Years of the Canadian Government's Only Working Horse Ranch. She and her husband, Dale Portman, live in Cochrane, Alberta."

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    June Mickle - Kathy Calvert

    effort.

    Chapter I

    GOING HOME

    On a dark day a young woman, advanced in pregnancy, wandered precariously close to the slippery tide pools of the Pacific Ocean that defined the western extent of Vancouver. But she was too deep in thought to pay much attention to where she walked, despite the possible danger of a fall. The baby could come any time, but where she would eventually live and raise it was not yet fully decided in her mind.

    A year earlier, Clara Hamilton Roughton had married an attractive young soldier with an irresistible smile and an easy laugh. They had met on a double date that her sister Lulu had arranged with Basil Roughton’s brother Alan. They were taking in an early evening show and decided to walk to the theatre to allow the two brothers, who had just returned from the war, to absorb the nightlife of downtown Calgary, such as it was in 1919. Lulu had originally arranged for Clara to accompany Allan, but Basil impulsively scattered that plan when he ran ahead and grabbed Clara by the arm, determined to sit next to her during the show. Clara was so distracted by this exciting young soldier that she remembered very little of what was playing. Years later, she realized they had fallen in love that night.

    Basil Roughton’s family was of English descent and had settled in Calgary in the late 1800s. Basil was one of seven brothers, five of whom enlisted as soldiers in the 10th and 31st Canadian Infantry Battalions, CEF. Clifford and Basil were the youngest and served together in the 10th Battalion. They were exceptionally fit young men, and the recruiters did not look too closely when they both claimed to be eighteen. Clifford just met this qualification, but Basil had lied; he was only seventeen. The Roughton family was exceptionally fortunate in losing only one son during those devastating years, but the ultimate horror was borne by Basil, who saw Clifford blown to pieces while fighting at his side. While Basil choked down the loss of his brother and several close friends, he was awarded the rank of Sergeant Major, along with six medals for bravery. Doubtless Basil had earned these honours, but in that war, the rewards seemed given largely for survival.

    CLARA HAMILTON (1919)

    Though Basil returned with the Dogs of War snapping at his heels, he found great joy in his immediate marriage to Clara. They enjoyed a rare happiness in their marriage, which deepened at news of her pregnancy. It was only marred by a sadness that would unexpectedly creep over him. It was not something he could talk about with anyone who had not experienced the horrors of the war. A famous British soldier frequently sent dispatches home from the front, trying to describe the appalling conditions soldiers were expected to endure.

    Geoffrey Winthrop-Young wrote: The stories of madness are frequent. This was a monstrous inversion of civilization. To call it war was to imply something of the sun remained … 1

    The common denominator of these soul-blasted survivors was their inability to convey, even remotely, to those who had not experienced such horrors, what they had lived through. Most buried it deep in their minds and lived with any relief that peace brought.

    To all who knew him, Basil succeeded in this, finding the greatest joy in his love for Clara. But their union did not survive even one year. If Basil Roughton had cheated death during a time of war, he was not so lucky under the peaceful skies of western Alberta.

    BASIL ROUGHTON IN UNIFORM (1919)

    BASIL BEFORE THE WAR

    It was a beautiful fall day when Basil joined his brother-in-law Jappy Rogers to go bird hunting near Okotoks. As Basil kissed Clara, who was drowsy with sleep, he whispered a short endearment and promised a pheasant for supper. Clara woke enough to reply, I know you are a very good hunter and an expert shot, but they need to hang a few days before the pot sees them. I’ll whip up something good for supper – keep me busy. She drifted to sleep under the covers, planning his favorite meal of pork chops and applesauce and perhaps a pie for dessert.

    The early fall sun was streaming through the window when the phone rang. The call from a close friend in Okotoks was as sudden and unexpected as a fire bolt in the sky. Basil had been shot in a hunting accident. His death was instantaneous. Clara could not move; paralyzed with grief alternating with disbelief, she slumped to the floor. She could not remember how long it took for people to arrive for support and with sketchy confirmation of the accident.

    Newspaper coverage reported that a loaded gun barrel had gone off, shooting Basil through the heart while he was trying to dispatch a wounded bird with the gunstock. It was difficult to imagine how a seasoned soldier could have fatally pointed the barrel at his chest while attempting to knock a bird senseless. One of Basil’s jobs had been training other soldiers in gun safety. But alternative explanations were much more difficult to live with. Apart from suicide (not seriously considered by anyone at the time), the only other possible explanation was that he’d been accidentally shot by another member of the party. Testimony and logistics ruled this out, however, and his death was accepted as an accident.

    As the dark day near the tide pools grew colder, Clara reluctantly returned to her brother-in-law’s house, expecting to be confronted yet again over what she intended to do with the baby. At her sister-in-law’s insistence, she had moved out there shortly after Basil’s death. Although her own brothers farmed near Calgary, life with them would have been very hard for a young expectant mother. It was difficult enough to deal with her pregnancy, as well as her unshakable grief, without taking on the strenuous housekeeping chores that went with managing a farm for three men. The time spent with her in-laws gave her some respite, but she soon had to decide where she would make her home.

    As she entered the spacious foyer, her sister-in-law immediately met her. Well, Clara, did the walk help?

    She replied, I know you want an answer, but what you ask is beyond me right now!

    I don’t mean to press, but the baby is coming, and you know you can’t provide a home as a single mother. What will you do? You can’t work and raise a baby in all fairness to the child. Single parenting is simply not realistic.

    Oh, for heaven’s sake, lots of families lose fathers and husbands. The rest of the family just chips in, that’s all!

    Her sister-in-law had frequently suggested that she and her husband adopt the child for its own good and have Clara live on as mother/caretaker. Clara was not sure what role they really wanted for her.

    Of course! the matron replied. What do you think? It’s what we wish to do!

    You want to adopt the child as your own. You’re asking me to relinquish my obligations as a mother!

    Clara was now more agitated than ever. It was unconscionable, though she knew that her baby would probably have a secure future in a well-established family, which was something she could not guarantee at that time. But the thought of giving up her baby, now the dearest link to her lost husband, was intolerable.

    Her walks by the ocean had given her much-needed time to reflect on her options. She did have her own family in the Calgary area and had only gone to Vancouver because of the generous offer from her in-laws. She could truly understand the desire they had to be close to her baby (and presumably, her as well), but she missed her siblings.

    The Hamiltons were a well-established Alberta family. Along with his brothers, in the late 1880s, Robert Hamilton, Clara’s father, had moved from interior British Columbia to Calgary, where he married and had five children. The three boys and her sister Lulu, now married to Jappy Rogers, still lived there although her parents had passed away.

    That night, after the conversation with her sister-in-law, she wrote to her brothers asking for advice. As the child’s birth approached, the slowness of the mail service added to her growing anxiety, but she could not give her answer until she had heard from them. The Hamilton boys (John, Bob, and Fred) were loving brothers who were very dear to her, but her proposal of moving out to the farm to keep house with a new baby might not sit well with them. They were bachelors who had been living on their own since before her marriage and had adjusted to their own lifestyle. Adding a woman and baby to the mix would require some modifications.

    Despite any apprehension, the unanimous reply came back as the month of June blossomed through the seemingly perpetual gloom of the winter rains. Bob, the oldest, spoke for all of them with no hesitation. They welcomed the idea of her moving home and emphatically refused to entertain the idea she give up the baby. The work would be hard – twice the work of being a wife to one man. It meant taking on the laundry, cleaning, and cooking for two grown men. There would have been three except that Fred, who was crippled from polio, did not actually live on the farm – but he would visit enough for her daughter to feel she had three devoted fathers.

    Clara was delirious with excitement and marveled at how much she missed the blue open skies of the prairies after dreary months of rain. Vancouver was beautiful when the sun shone, but that was all too infrequent as far as she was concerned. The day she made her choice, however, the sun was shining, somehow giving consent to the happiness she felt in resolving her issues. Best of all, she knew that Basil had loved the prairies and the mountains of Alberta, and in her heart she knew bringing up young June in the country he loved was right. Clara’s daughter was born on June 29, 1920, at Vancouver General Hospital. She was named June, after the month that had brought Clara such joy.

    It was difficult to let her sister-in-law know her decision.

    I can’t give up my baby no matter what you offer, Clara informed her sister-in-law. She will have a good home, and I think it will give her a future with freedom she won’t see in this city. It was all she could think of in defense of this position, but as she verbalized this thought, she could feel the freedom of the prairies blessed by the strong winds that drove the clouds through the open sky.

    Clara’s belief that it would be a hard life on the prairie farm was not dispelled. The farm was located in the bleak Balzac country just north and east of the embryonic city of Calgary, an unsophisticated town, which in the 1920s mirrored the essence of western life in all its limited glory.

    The work was labor intensive. The laundry was all done by hand. The water for the laundry had to be hauled from a well (often distant) and heated on a wood stove that was fueled by wood chopped by hand. Everything was heated on the wood stove, which was unrelentingly ravenous for an endless supply of wood even in summer when the daytime heat soared. The tasks of keeping food in the belly, clean clothes on everyone’s back, and a spotless house never ended. Then there was the garden: planting, watering, hoeing and finally harvesting. Clara often thought she would faint from the heat radiating from the blistering summer sun. But she still preferred the hot skies of home to the cool rains of Vancouver any day of the week.

    It was a chore to keep June clean and free of heat rash in the stifling, airless farmhouse. When the suns of July and August seared in the sky, devoid of the smallest breeze, the only cool place was in the icehouse. There was not even a pond nearby to swim in to relieve the daily heat.

    Despite the heat, the chores of summer were pleasant compared to the drudgery of winter. Everything was much harder to cope with when the temperature plunged to minus 50°F and the wind blew endlessly across the unhindering plains. Washing was a nightmare when nothing could be hung out to dry. Just melting enough water from ice meant keeping enough of this precious commodity on hand was an endless chore. They were also fairly isolated, and long winter days were passed in close quarters. They all had to learn to coexist and not invade personal spaces or overly tax relationships when boredom became a trial. June got through the winters fairly well as she was too young to be affected by simmering family tensions. Her uncles, particularly Fred, were very good to her, and she did not want for attention.

    Clara did not toil alone in her Sisyphean duties. Her brothers worked equally hard in running the farm. They had cows to milk, horses to tend, and acres of land that lay fallow in the spring, rested and ready for a summer of ploughing and planting and reaping. This would supply grain or hay for the following year, depending on the crop. Every step was laborious without the aid of modern farm machinery.

    All new fields had to cleared by hand. Trees were felled with an axe, leaving the deep taproot of the stump to be burned and pulled from the bone of the earth. Once the bush was gone, the rocks that had surfaced and kept resurfacing were removed one by one – probably the most backbreaking work of all. The horses were hitched to a stout, barge-like skid, commonly referred to as a stone-boat, which was dragged slowly over the field while the workers tossed the rocks on board. They stopped frequently when a particularly large boulder required several people to haul it onto the boat. Before it got too heavy for the horses to pull, the load was hauled off to the side and dumped where the rocks might be used in further construction projects. This was repeated, over and over, until the land was ready for cultivation.

    The biggest change for the family during this period was the move, when June was two, to Midnapore, a small town south of Calgary. An uncle of Clara and her brothers, Johnny Hamilton, bought a farm there and moved the whole family into the new home. Now they were all together under one roof, which brought a significant improvement to their social life. They were nearer to other farmers and ranchers, and Saturday nights were all the livelier. Uncle Johnny had a piano that he’d inherited from his mother, and Clara proved to be an apt player. Friends and family gathered around this rare bit of culture for an evening of song and dance as often as they could. This event was always complemented with good food and home-brewed berry wine. Later the cards would come out to pass the long evening playing poker. As the coal-oil lanterns flickered, the homesteaders proved they had the partying stamina of politicians, and rarely did an evening end much before early morning.

    Clara came from hardy, adventurous stock. The Hamilton brothers (Robert, George, and James) were pioneers who had sailed from New Brunswick around Cape Horn with a sense of purpose, hoping to arrive before the gold rush in California was over. They missed the opportunity to stake an early claim there, so they continued on to the next major gold strike in the Cariboo gold fields of British Columbia. Even this formidably remote place was staked out by the time they arrived. It was becoming apparent that the only way to get in on the riches was to find other ways of reaping the benefits of the boom while the gold was being dug out of the ground. Other opportunities to harvest the gold were there if imagination, hard work, and daring were employed.

    Johnny Hamilton had not gone with his brothers when they sailed, but later joined them after traveling overland from New Brunswick. He and Jim became drivers for the stagecoach on the infamous Cariboo Road, which ran from the town of Yale to Barkerville. It was a challenging drive full of perils. Precipitous cliffs dotted the route, falling hundreds of feet below to the Fraser Canyon. The road itself was narrow with curves so sharp that often the driver could not see the lead mules. Later, when gold was shipped out by the stage, banditry was added to the list of dangers. In the early days of the gold rush, the stagecoaches only carried in supplies for the camps and often came back empty. But when the gold ore began to surface in alarming quantity, it was converted to ingots, and the value became a magnet for robbers.

    This lifestyle was exciting for a young, unattached man but was not conducive to those with families. During his stay in the Cariboos, John acquired both a family and a mine (the Caledonia) from which he saved $20,000, a considerable sum in those days.

    After the first flush of the gold rush, prospectors, ever a wandering lot, began to move on. John was also a bit of a wanderer and later moved to Bentinck Arm near Bella Coola where he might have settled for a while had it not been for one of the first First Nations land-claim conflicts in Canada’s history. The Waddington Indian Massacre (also known as the Chilcotin War or Bute Inlet Massacre) resulted from a conflict between the Tsilhqot’in (Chilcotin) people and road construction workers. The road had been proposed by Alfred Waddington to run from the Cariboo gold fields to the shipping port at Bella Coola. It would reduce land transportation of the gold and supplies by 174 miles, making travel time fifteen days shorter, which was fairly significant in that country. The Chilcotin Indians were suffering from starvation and smallpox as a direct result of contact with the fur traders. The occupation of their valleys and mountains by the fur traders felt like an invasion to the Chilcotins and their resentment mounted with the construction of the road that they viewed as a threat to their way of life.

    Actual road construction had been underway for two years when the Chilcotin, hungry, sick, and just plain fed-up, approached a local ferryman on the Quesnel River for food. When he refused the starving natives even a potato, they killed him, threw him in the river, and confiscated the stores. Emboldened by victory and a half a ton of food, they carried on to the work camp and dispatched a few more laborers. In their minds, they were at war, and so they considered it a reasonable request when they received a subsequent invitation to meet with the New Westminster Gold Commissioner, William Cox (proxy for the governor), to settle their differences. Under Cox’s pretense of a friendly meeting the natives felt safe, and they attended, only to be thrown in jail and later hanged. There was great controversy over whom to blame, but ultimately, the Attorney General apologized for the hangings and provided funding for the proper burial of the victims.

    John and his family had just settled in the area when the conflict drove the settlers from their home, forcing the Hamiltons to relocate in the Cariboos. They bought Beaver Pass House from Bloody Edwards (a colloquial term attributed to the man for no real explanation), but it was a small place that did not hold them for long. The next move, in 1868, found them buying the Cottonwood Ranch, which was essentially a rundown roadhouse. They made improvements and even considered establishing a dairy farm with cows brought up from Oregon. Though John’s wife was a great cook and they prospered there, his roving days were not over, and after a few years, he moved on to the Nicola Valley, near Merritt, in the heart of British Columbia. His brother Robert and his family settled in the same area not long after. Both families fell in love with the open spaces and established a ranch favored with rich grass that grew abundantly on the hills. They prospered here as well, but Johnny could not shake his restlessness. He was soon on the move again, this time to Calgary, Alberta, where he settled for good. Robert soon followed and also established himself in the Calgary area.

    Johnny was quite the entrepreneur in this thriving community, eventually owning several ranches and livery stables. He would visit his ranches frequently but continued living in the city to better run the livery stables. One accomplishment he felt very good about was purchasing the farm near Midnapore that resulted in reuniting the family.

    Despite the hard days and the loneliness, June grew up happy and thrived on what the farm had to offer. She particularly loved the horses, and by the time she was three had acquired enough mobility to make it to the barn, where she was a menace. In her desire to get close to the animals, she would untie them, allowing a thunderous escape, in which she miraculously was not trampled. But it was her mother’s saddle horse that caused the most grief. June was infatuated with this animal and would repeatedly untie the horse and lead it into the yard. Unfortunately, she was too small to do the leading, and more often than not the horse would drag her through the mud, slough, and manure piles dumped at the end of the yard. Her mother would alternately laugh or spank her for these escapades. If her mother weren’t chasing her, then her uncles would be – after they had rounded up the horses wildly running through the fields – harnesses flapping in all directions and spooking them to even greater flight.

    As June became more mobile and more of a babysitting problem for Clara, who was taxed enough with daily chores, her uncles took over some of the care. June was particularly fond of her Uncle Bob, for whom she felt a daughterly affection. He indulged her sense of adventure by taking her with him to the fields when haying or cultivating. More than likely, he just gave in to her precociousness. She would sneak under the seat of the wagon when he left for the fields and hide until they were too far away for him to bother driving her home. At first this was a real nuisance, but Bob did not have the heart to get more than annoyed. He soon tolerated her riding with him in the wagon, pulled by a team of strong draft horses, and enjoyed her delight in the exciting alternative to another day playing alone in the yard.

    June never developed a fear of horses, which did lead to trouble on one occasion. Bob, who rarely got ruffled over anything, got upset when she was struck on the head by one of the horses’ hooves when she persisted in feeding them handfuls of grass. The injury was not serious, but Bob realized he could not watch her when he was busy elsewhere. He quickly sent her packing back to the house, remonstrating with himself for letting her tag along to begin with.

    Child rearing on the farm in those early years was not hampered by over-protective parents. Sending June home alone across the fields with a blow on the head was not a problem for Bob. In his world, children were taught to look after themselves early in life. Though June knew the way home and was more than capable of the walk, the sight of her daughter ambling home with a cut on her head must have alarmed Clara. She’d thought the child was playing in the back yard.

    As June grew, Clara realized that her daughter’s attraction to horses was probably a result of not having children her own age to play with. This even though June was blessed with three uncles, one of whom was a special companion due to his disability (Fred was still an adult and certainly could not play). The solution to June’s horse fixation was cleverly handled when her mother decided that, if she had her own horse, the others would be left in peace. So on a lovely summer morning, June got Topsy, a gentle, midnight-black Shetland pony that soon became a constant companion. She loved her complacent friend and began to resent her obligatory afternoon naps, which interfered with riding. Hers was a solitary world, and Topsy was her only substitute for friends she did not have. It did not take long before she began to slip out the bedroom window and escape on Topsy to scam cookies from nearby neighbors.

    JUNE ON TOPSY

    June was ingenious at handling her horse, and how she escaped must have baffled Clara. To reach the neighbors, she had to get through the barbwire fence. This proved easy, for the pony was small enough to get under the wire if she held it up. Mounting proved more of a challenge. A bank or rock was necessary to reach the pony’s back but only effective when the horse lowered its head to feed. June climbed over its neck but then had to squirm on her belly on the soft, wide back to turn forward. It was another fight to retrieve the reins that had tangled in the pony’s ears. She always managed these Herculean maneuvers without being caught until Annie tattled on her. Annie was the daughter of a close neighbor who made irresistible cookies, which she happily shared with Topsy.

    On more than one occasion, Clara received a call from Annie saying June was in her kitchen scamming cookies. Inevitably Clara would check the bedroom, only to find an open window.

    Alright, thanks Annie. Send her home.

    June swallowed the last cookie, knowing she could expect a hiding when she got there.

    The early days of June’s childhood went by too quickly for her to realize how happy she was until she was older. It was a healthy life that could only have been improved by childhood friends, but that would change soon enough for her when the family moved to Midnapore. This also gave

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